


My Dearest Jonah

by Caz (CheeryKralie)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-typical voyeurism, Do Not Archive (The Magnus Archives), M/M, Masturbation, Second-Hand Arousal, gay pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:21:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23552233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheeryKralie/pseuds/Caz
Summary: Statement of Jonathan Fanshawe, regarding his upcoming visit to Jonah Magnus. Original statement given as an unsent letter taken from his private papers, October 19th, 1827.Jon reads a letter from one of Jonah’s old flames, and he gets a bit carried away. There's Regency-era pining and erections and lowkey conditioning. Jonah likes it when people watch, even if it's from 200 years away. Enjoy.
Relationships: Jonah Magnus/Jonathan Sims (obliquely), Jonathan Fanshawe/Jonah Magnus
Comments: 19
Kudos: 131





	My Dearest Jonah

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leitnerpiper69](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leitnerpiper69/gifts), [CaptainSwank](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainSwank/gifts).



The statement was written by hand in an old-fashioned script, on paper that over the years had turned yellow and crisp despite the carefully-controlled climate of the Archives. It was stored with countless others in the drawer of a filing cabinet, as disordered as all the rest.

Jon couldn’t escape the feeling that it had been put there just for him. He had no sensible evidence for this, but ‘sensible’ no longer seemed to be in fashion. What had replaced it was knowledge without origin or reason; and though following that knowledge felt like following a compass while fearing and distrusting the concept of north, it was at least better than going forward completely blind.

It had to be. If it wasn’t, then he’d made a series of terrible mistakes. And that was not what he wanted to occupy his thoughts this evening, or ever.

He was already reaching for the paper before he’d made the conscious decision to read it. Sometimes particular statements called to him, in a way he didn’t like to dwell on; he’d learned to follow that call, because at its end was always something important. Something that answered a question he had, gave him a clue he needed. Something that helped both him and the others.

And that was why he was here, wasn’t it? Why he kept going through statements, why he… fed himself, why he’d woken up from that coma at all. To help everyone. Even if it meant accepting things that twisted his stomach with the anticipation of regret.

He settled himself at his desk, confirmed that a tape recorder had turned on, and began to read.

“Statement of Dr. Jonathan Fanshawe, regarding his upcoming visit to Jonah Magnus.” The words came fluidly without any need to glance over the document first. “Original statement given as an unsent letter taken from his private papers, October 19th, 1827.”

 _Unsent?_ Jon didn’t stop to wonder how the letter had found its way into the Archives. He was already slipping into the rhythm of the statement, his hands steadying on the paper, a suppressed and ever-present sense of urgency leaving his mind and letting him relax on the chair.

“Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.

“Statement begins.

“My dearest Jonah,

“This morning I put pen to paper with uncommon relish. I have spent the past week making inquiries at the location you suggested, and I am pleased to say that whatever man or men gives you your information has done it again; the book is now in my possession, and awaits travel to Edinburgh. I hope it pleases you to read that I will be travelling with it.

“No –– it is useless to protest! I picture your fine lips moving, but whether they are forming a frown or a smile, my mind is made up. Your grand plans and schemes can surely make room for an hour or two with a close friend. To make sure of that, I am bringing you a gift. The book’s erstwhile custodian was, as you warned, none too pleased that his stolen property was to be returned to you –– and though unpleasant to tell, you may find the tale an enjoyable sweet to accompany the meat of the text. Forgive me if I shudder while I tell it; I do not know whether the thrill will be in horror at my memories, or in wonder at your singular presence as a listener.

“Rest assured, the book is well-preserved and suffered no damage during its retrieval. In the latter respect, I am sorry to say, it is luckier than I. Still, though other men of science might damn me for saying so, I cannot help but believe your odd instructions may have saved the lives of myself and my men last night. Your tales of the eerie and fanciful once seemed only tales, and yet now the eerie and fanciful spring out of the shadows wherever I turn. Cooler heads might advise me to see this as a dire warning, and perhaps they would be right, but Jonah, you know that in your presence I am anything but cool.

“Still, my retrieval of the book was dangerous, and I think you would like to hear the story. I feel a strong inclination to write it in its entirety here, but my hand is stayed by my desire to see your reaction first-hand. I know you will be rapt, Jonah, and though I have seen that keen piercing attention turned to a subject several times, it has been some months since it was last turned upon me. I do not mind admitting that I am drawn to it, and why should I mind? You possess a gravity that men can only orbit, and I flatter myself to hope that I orbit much more closely to the centre than most.

“When we met first, I remember I was smitten by your eyes. All this time, and still my only wish is that they might smite me again.

“To-morrow I will be on the train to Edinburgh, Jonah, and it lightens my heart to write those words, to capture my intent in an indelible form. My professional life will weather a weekend’s absence; it has survived worse, and will survive worse still, as long as I suffer these small fits of madness that your existence alone inspires in me.

“I am unmanned by my desire to see you again, and to tell you my story. Not just because it is strange –– and passing strange it certainly is –– but because I desire to tell you something, anything; I crave those furtive moments, the hours that seem to be minutes and the minutes that seem to be hours. I am not a public speaker, Jonah, nor really much of a private one, but you –– you are the one man who might never know that. Speaking to you makes me feel as I never have. I become a poet instead of a doctor, finding words with ease; a sentimental fool instead of a rational man, who would be drowned in a sea of fear and feeling were it not for your two bright eyes anchoring me to land. And when you finally speak –– such a voice, reverberating forth from such a mouth! –– I am nerveless, senseless but for the hands that––”

The door opened, scattering all words and impressions like a stone thrown into a pond.

Jon said, “What is it?”, loudly, and more angrily than he’d meant to.

“I didn’t know you were still working,” said Basira. Her voice was halfway between bristling and apologetic.

Of course. She didn’t know. _What a nice problem to have._ Jon felt only half there, like someone still shaking off a dream, but he made himself turn his head to face her.

“Well now you do,” he said curtly. The unfinished statement still whirled around his mind, full of images that he had experienced but not yet begun to examine. He focused as much as he could on the floor beneath his feet, the hard desk under his elbows, and came back to himself a little. He realised that his skin was hot, and though his diction while reading had not suffered at all, he was now breathing as if he’d been running.

Basira was looking at him with a small frown. She must have bitten back whatever remark she had ready for him, because her next words were a grudging: “You okay?”

“I…”

Jon didn’t know how to answer that, not even to himself. The experience of taking in a statement was always so visceral, the storyteller’s wants and fears becoming briefly his own, and this one had taken a turn he wasn’t expecting. He didn’t know how to square the sudden tension in his trousers with the unknown face and voice of the Institute’s ancient founder. Or rather, he did know how those things went together, and he didn’t want to go any further down that road.

He profoundly hoped that he hadn’t been reading too loudly.

Discomfort and embarrassment kept him quiet, and in response, Basira stepped further into the office room. This was the last thing Jon wanted.

“You look like––” she began.

“No, no,” he said, overlapping her, “I’m _fine_ , I’m just –– in the middle of something.”

In hindsight, he wished he’d chosen a less suggestive set of words.

“Your face is all red,” said Basira, who at least wasn’t getting any closer. “Have you got a fever? _Can_ you even get a fever?”

Jon found himself missing the old days when it was usually Martin interrupting him. Martin, who would probably just stand there apologising awkwardly, and who was much easier to get rid of.

 _Too easy,_ he thought, and the thought had the rancid flavour of maybe-it’s-too-late guilt.

“If you need something,” he said, “I’ll be finished here soon, but I want to get back to this.”

The immovable object refused to budge. The unstoppable force gave up first, presumably deciding that it had better things to do.

“All right,” said Basira, clearly not satisfied, but turning towards the door anyway. “Suit yourself. Half an hour?”

An affirmative “hm” was Jon’s only reply, because the statement was already pulling at him to come back, and moment by moment, his focus drifted obediently back to it. 

But one thing had to be asked. What was he gaining from this? The question was absurd on its face –– statements had to be made, statements had to be recorded –– but he was forced to admit that this particular statement was… 

Well, if it held useful information, it was hiding it very well. At first it had seemed to point the way to an unknown book, presumably a Leitner of some kind, but at this point it seemed to be turning into, well, some sort of longform Georgian sexting.

But there had to be more to it than that. Why else would he have been drawn to it?

Jon hunched low over the desk, his preferred position for thinking, but all that achieved was to draw his eyes once again to the paper, to the lines about being smitten, anchored, drawn –– they dragged at something inside him. He’d _felt_ Jonathan Fanshawe’s love for Jonah Magnus, and his lust as well, however thinly disguised behind flowery and carefully imprecise language.

Lust, for better or worse, was a kind of thrill that Jon didn’t get to experience very often: physical and illogical, maddening and delicious.

It was a kind of thrill that he didn’t think he wanted to associate with the shadowy founder of the Institute.

 _But it’s not really my choice,_ he thought. This was his nature now, whether or not he’d asked for it to be. That thought made the decision easier.

He made himself wait until the door had closed behind Basira, counting the seconds with his lip between his teeth, and then quickly found his place again. The office around him vanished as he returned to reading.

“I am nerveless, senseless but for the hands that clutch too tightly at yours. Your face is still, but your skin is warm, and the quickness of your pulse sets my fears aside.

“These memories cloud my head like wine. During the day, when I am occupied with business, with patients, with the goings-on of the world, I am able to pretend that I still belong to that world. I can pretend that I have not been touched by something greater and more desirable. But night strips away all illusion, and I sit up late into the evening, ruining my eyes by gas-light as I avoid the bed in which I know I will not sleep.

“I have not yet taken a wife, and in most respects my bed has been appropriately chaste. Of course I dallied as a lad, but as a man I believe that I must exercise the self-control expected of us all. At least, I believed that until I met you, Jonah.

“Since then, I have understood how an animal feels, rutting its mate in some secret place with no thought for law or society. I have known something more compelling than abstract love for a woman, something more penetrating than boyish fumblings.

“Since then, when I lie down to wait for sleep, the first dreams to find me are always waking ones. My own hands on my skin become yours. My teeth on my lip, my fist in my hair, all yours, yours, yours. The room becomes warm, the bedclothes damp, and I wonder: did I sit up so late because I wanted to avoid this, or because I could then cry out in ecstasy with no fear that a servant might still be awake to hear it? I am a moral man and mortified of discovery, and yet my fear is outstripped by my desire time and time again, and that desire always, always wears your face. I am consumed by you.

“I feel possessed; my body moves of its own desperate accord. Yet perhaps the more frightening truth is that the actions are all mine, and that I revel in them.

“I always reveal too much of myself to you, Jonah. I start to speak and I cannot stop. Even now, on paper, I have let out more than I am comfortable committing to the mercy of the post, however slim the chance that any eyes other than ours might see it. I feel that I must take a deep breath and start this letter anew, and this time conduct myself with restraint.

“But is that not a fine reason for me to see you face-to-face? I wish for another encounter like our last, when we could speak our truest secrets to each other in the gentleness of night. I want to enjoy again that unique privacy afforded only to the solitary cat, to the widower, and to two people who are separated only by skin. Damn this town, its people, and its patients! Would that my words could fall on your ears and your ears alone.

“You will never read this letter, but I hope that some spark of it shows in my eyes when I meet you in Edinburgh, and that you will see it, and that you will understand.

“Your servant, now and always,

“Doctor Jonathan Fanshawe.

“Statement ends.”

Jon forced himself to take a breath, and then to let it out. 

To take another breath, and to let it out.

There were pinpricks running across his body, and sweat cooling on his face. It made the office feel cold in contrast to what seemed to be boiling heat under his skin. His head was swimming, his eyes half blinded by images of a man with a face he’d never seen, a face he wouldn’t recognise but which he desperately, desperately wished he knew.

He shifted in his chair, pinned and uncomfortable in the creased fabric of his own trousers, and reached down almost without thinking. His hand fell into his lap, and he jerked his hips sharply, already overstimulated. The long-dead Jonah Magnus in Jon’s imagination –– whoever he was, whatever his face –– seemed to be laughing. Jon’s entire body was a line of tension from his throat to the ground, and his knee hit the desk as he came, though not loud enough to cover his strangled moan.

Then he froze, one hand gripping himself through his wet trousers, the other hanging on to the statement so hard that he was leaving deep creases in the 200-year-old paper. He froze as if that would freeze time as well. As if it would grant him infinite seconds in which to deal with being back in his office, with the tape recorder running, and the hazy shocks of afterglow pinging up and down his body.

Time, of course, did not freeze. And Jon was obliged to finish his recording.

A recording that nobody would ever hear, he promised himself, in a rush of guilt and shame that felt like reliving parts of the statement again. He obviously couldn’t destroy it, but maybe he could hide it, take it back to his home (he still had one somewhere), label it as something innocuous and uninteresting so that nobody would think to listen to it…

But before any of that, he had to finish it.

“I…”

Who was he even recording this post-script for? Himself? The Eye?

“I don’t know why you led me to this statement,” he said quietly, dropping all pretense, addressing it directly. Addressing _his god_ directly. “But I get the feeling it wasn’t for my benefit. Was it? Was I supposed to glean something from this… this…”

He lifted his hands, then shakily rested them on the table, trying to pose them as if he hadn’t just groped himself to completion in the middle of the Institute. Tried to remember if there was a tissue box in the office somewhere. Hoped against hope that Basira hadn’t come back yet, and wasn’t waiting outside the door.

“I don’t know what I was supposed to learn from this,” he said accusingly, “but I hope you enjoyed yourself.”

As he pushed down the tape recorder’s stop button, he knew as if he had been shown it that someone, somewhere very definitely had.


End file.
